Faculty Bio

Dr. Luke Bresky

Associate Professor, English

Phone: 403-254-3712
Email: luke.bresky@stmu.ca

I grew up in Calgary, where I completed high school and my undergraduate degree; my interest in American literature and culture led me to the U.S. for my graduate studies. My MA at Davis gave me two years of well-supported teaching experience; after I finished that degree, I worked as a language and composition instructor in Mainz and Erfurt, Germany, where I witnessed the unification of the old FDR and DDR. I returned to California for my doctoral work at UCLA, taking advantage of the extensive range of seminars offered in that large program to build a solid generalist foundation in American Literature.

As a PhD candidate, I earned three fellowships, including a Regina Fadiman Scholarship to participate in UCLA’s Paris Program in Critical Theory, working on Marcel Mauss’s theory of Nationalism at the Collège de France. Returning to Los Angeles, I finished my dissertation, Literature and the Nationalization of Heroism in Antebellum America, under the direction of Michael J. Colacurcio.

After two years as a Post-Doc lecturer at UCLA, I worked as a visiting professor at Pomona, leaving to accept a Fulbright Scholarship at the Gutenberg University in Mainz. The following year (2004), I returned to Calgary, became a parent, and taught my first course at St. Mary’s. Several courses later, in 2006, I succeeded in my application for a tenure-stream position in the newly-accredited English BA Program.

Since then, along with diverse courses on American literature, I’ve developed and taught courses on Victorian British literature, Gothic Fiction, and Literary Theory. I’ve served two terms as President of the St. Mary’s Faculty Association, and two terms as Faculty Representative to the Board of Governors; externally, I’m current Vice President of the Canadian Association for American Studies (slated to become President in 2026). As my various publications indicate, my research focus has shifted from literary nationalism to the print culture of the antebellum reform movement (notably the alliance between Antislavery and Women’s Rights). Most recently, I’ve examined transatlantic debates concerning American manners and civility in the lead-up to the Civil War.

Specialization/Research Interest

Nineteenth-Century U.S. Fiction, Antebellum Reform, Cultural Nationalism

Education

PhD, American Literature, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), 1999
MA, English, University of California Davis, 1989
BA, English, University of Calgary, 1986

  • “Editor’s Introduction: Alternative/Mainstream.” Canadian Review of American Studies 52.2 (Winter 2022).
  • Editor, “Special Issue: Alternative/Mainstream.” Canadian Review of American Studies 52.2 (August 2022).
  • “‘A Day-Dream, and Yet a Fact’: Universal Emancipation in The Blithedale Romance.” Stories of Nation: Fictions, Politics, and the American Experience. Martin Griffin, Christopher Hebert, eds. U of Tennessee P (2017).
  • “Observing Manners in Hawthorne’s Blithedale.” Nathaniel Hawthorne Review 43.1 (Spring 2017).
  • “Brook Farm and Utopian Literature.” American History Through Literature (1820-1870) 3rd edition. Laura Liebman, ed. Gale Research (2016).
  • Tomorrow’s Parties: Sex and the Untimely in Nineteenth-Century America, by Peter Coviello” (Review). Nathaniel Hawthorne Review 42.2 (Fall 2016).
  • The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Michael Colacurcio and M. Luke Bresky, eds. Broadview Press (2015).
  • “Pro-Americans, Proto-Americans, and Un-Americans in Melville’s Israel Potter.” A Passion for Getting it Right: Essays Celebrating Michael J. Colacurcio’s 50 Years of Teaching. Peter Lang (2015).
  • “The Entanglements of Nathaniel Hawthorne, by Samuel Chase Coale” (Review). Studies in the Novel 46.2 (Summer 2014).
  • “The Entanglements of Nathaniel Hawthorne, by Samuel Chase Coale” (Review). Studies in the Novel 46.2 (Summer 2014).
  • “Impounders of Stray Women: Feminine Fugitives at Blithedale.”American Political Fictions. Martin Griffin, ed. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. (Forthcoming 2013.)
  • “The Recuperative Trend in Hawthorne Studies: New or Improved?” Canadian Review of American Studies 41.2 (August 2011).
  • “Latitudes and Longitudes of Our Condition: The Nationality of Emerson’s Representatives.” ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance 48.4 (October 2002).
  • “Kindred.” Literature and Its Times, Vol V. Joyce Moss, ed. Gale Research (2002).
  • “Invisible Man.” Literature and Its Times, Vol IV. Joyce Moss, ed. Gale Research (1999)
  • “Marcel Mauss’s National Internationalism: An Approach to The Gift.” Paroles Gelées 15.2 (1997).
  • “Babbitt.” Literature and Its Times, Vol III. Joyce Moss, ed. Gale Research (1997).